Gameloft Acquires Driver License

Gameloft fired another volley in its recent battle with Glu Mobile today, with the announcement that it has acquired the exclusive mobile rights to develop, publish and distribute games based on Atari's Driver franchise. The company specifically noted in its announcement that previous Driver mobile games, developed and published by Glu, will be off market on March 31, 2007.

Gameloft's mobile license acquisition was most likely helped along by sister-company Ubisoft, which is publishing PC, Wii, and PSP versions of the fourth main entry in the franchise, Driver: Parallel Lines. Atari itself released Xbox and PS2 Parallel Lines Skus in Q1 2006.

Gameloft expects to launch its game Driver: LA Undercover in both 2D and 3D in June 2007 to coincide with Ubisoft's console Driver releases.

"We are extremely excited to add this license to our award-winning portfolio of games," Michel Guillemot, President of Gameloft said in a statement. "We have ambitious goals for this franchise and we intend to install a completely renewed gameplay that has never been seen before in mobile games, and we are confident we can take Driver to the next level".